Wednesday, April 15, 2009

There he stood by the door. Light rain was falling, the haloed glow from the porch lamp radiating around his evocatively stuffed man bag. He put his coat on, pulled his keys from his pocket and said, "Please excuse me while I return to the office and make out with my calculator." With that, he was gone, leaving a trail of W2s behind him.

Over the years I've had the fantasy of being being chided by the cruel but mysterious tax man. There he stands, armed with an abacus and mechanical pencil. Ring around the collar, tight leisure pants, marinara stains above his suggestive pocket protector - and me, so naughty and disobedient for not submitting my medical receipts. Pheromones and audit hang heavy in the air. Somebody stop me before I claim a false deduction.

But today is the last day he'll be pimping out loop holes to save mankind from Uncle Sam. Today is April 15.

To be clear my husband does not get to stand on a street corner dressed as the statue of liberty and wave down traffic to solicit business. Instead, he works for himself, relying on word of mouth to generate income.

In the last two days he had to tell several clients they owed money to the IRS. One owed $12,500, the other $76,000, which would be fine with me except we don't get a cut on either one. Dang. (If you are either of these clients my most abject apologies and a reminder that Stacy From Louisville links are always free. It's the least I can do.)

Tonight he's taking me out to dinner. (I have a Liberty Tax Service Statue of Liberty hat just for the occasion. Yes, I'm wearing it.) Then, tomorrow, he'll celebrate even further by playing golf at a crappy course (it belongs to a client but it's not a kick back I swear). Then he'll treat himself to a Super Cuts special and just for giggles, properly fold a map and sort my kitchen utensils according to mass. Wheeeee!

You can take the accountant out of the office but you can't take the accountant out of the man.

If you'd like to hear more of his perspective on tax season please click here. Back in January he hijacked my blog and wrote a post. I had no idea he'd done it until my sister called me and asked if I'd checked my blog lately. Quite hysterical even though it is accountant humor. It's the most romantic thing he's done in years.

So, I'd like to dedicate this post to Dan Small, C.P.A. At this very moment I'm giddy with tax season lunacy, honey. You can audit me any time you want.

What's your tax season story? Do you owe this year? Or are you getting money back? We owe $900 to the state of Kentucky... Like my blog doesn't already generate enough notoriety to call it even...

We get money back but only because we are so poor, but then I realize just how blessed we are so I don't worry about not meeting the poverty standards the US government sets and rejoice that we have little need and are often in a place to bless others.

PS I do my taxes which were vile this year because of moving and selling a house, which fortunately didn't have to be reported but I did have to read about it just to make sure.

We got a refund. I refuse to think of it as money the government jacked from me, made interest on, then gave back to me when I jumped throught the proper paperwork hoops. I think of it as "Free money that rains down like manna". Don't kill my buzz by disagreeing with me.

I'm glad Dan's tax season is over. Congrats to you both. Are there pics of you in the Liberty hat?